In the dark shadows of the moon
by XXinsidemymindXX
Summary: this is my first attempt at writing a requested fan fic! Our favorite characters are gathering once again on a new adventure to fix the "broken" paradise that Darcia ruined for them. OC pairings for the boys will appear later on :). Rated T because I am paranoid.
1. Chapter 1

**I have had this laying on my desktop almost since I finished my first Wolf's rain story. It has sadly been neglected in favor of my Fairy Tail fan fic but when I read a poem the other day about Wolf's Rain I regained some of my lost inspiration and finished chapter number two :)**

**It is a request fic written for Craftygirl11 who asked me to write a story on what happened after the series finished: the pack heading off to a new adventure to fix the "broken" paradise and meeting new characters on their way. **

**I hope you enjoy my story and if you liked it please leave a little note for me, I live for those ;)**

**PS****. Surprise surprise: I don't own Wolf's Rain or any of the characters I shamelessly use in my story. This is purely written for my own entertainment and I do not benefit from it in any way.**

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**Chapter 1**

He had failed. The knowledge screamed in every fibre of his body, threatened to tear his very essence into unrepairable pieces. He had failed the flower maiden; he had failed everyone, everything he fought for, in vain…. He could not protect her, he was supposed to bring them to paradise, give them a new life, a better life. But he has stumbled on the finishing line and fallen, only feet away from being able to give them what was rightfully theirs.

This knowledge, heavily imprinted in his thoughts haunts him as he comes to consciousness once again. He remember the world dying, slowly being covered by an icecap, almost as if someone put a blanket over it, telling the world to sleep, rest and once again regain its strength. All of this he remembered, so why was he still here? And furthermore, where is here? What had happened? Why was he not dead? As he slowly woke up, he became more and more aware of his surroundings, the sound of rushing traffic reached his sensitive ears. His nose caught the strong musky mixture of odors he had come to associate with cities: Smoke and fumes from cars and huge plants mixed with sweat, oil, and food and strongest of all, humans. The stench of humans was everywhere, so strong it was completely impossible to ignore, making his nose twitch in reaction to it.

The next thing Kiba became aware of was something poking him in the stomach; he opened his eyes to find a couple of young boys looking at him with a mix of excitement and curiosity in their eyes, the oldest of the two standing closest to Kiba. He had sandy brown short hair and was dressed in baggy jeans and a red coat at least two sizes too big for him. He is holding a rusty long pipe in his hand, obviously what he used to poke Kiba with before.

"Told ya it wasn't dead."

"But what is it? A huge dog?"

Kiba could not be bothered dealing with two human boys at the same time as trying to sort out his confused thoughts so he slowly rose on all four, growling threatening with the desired result soon evident in the boys terrified faces: they quickly decided it would be better to leave than keep bugging the big, pissed off white dog and ran off, soon blending in with the noise and hectic rush of the city.

When the boys rounded the corner of the abandoned ally he woke up in, he sighed slightly and sat down again, he need time to think, to sort out his mixed up and blurry memories of the past. He remembered the fight with the mad noble. Kiba had fought him to defend his paradise. Paradise… He had been searching for paradise with friends, he knew this, the knowledge etched deep into him, but who were they? Why could he not remember who he had been running in a pack with? Images come to mind, mostly small trivial memories of bickering and familiarity but no matter how hard he tried he could not seem to recall any faces or names… except for…

Cheeza… Crimson unseeing eyes, a small fragile body and short pink hair: the Flower Maiden.

Nothing made sense, he should not be here, hell there should not be any 'here' to begin with… but here he was nonetheless. That probably or maybe more truthfully: hopefully, meant that the others were out there somewhere too. May be he could find her again. She had said that she would wait for him, that they would meet again, in paradise… Could that mean… Could this really be paradise? Had he made it there after all? It certainly did not seem like paradise, the different stenches of the city made his nose itch again and the rain drizzled, covering the cement buildings, coloring them all in the same lifeless grey shade.

If there was even the slightest chance that she was out there, together with the others, he had to find her Kiba reasoned while contemplating the perplexity of the situation; he knew he had to find them but had no clue where they could be, how to find them or even who he was looking for….

Even so, Kiba was used to having the odds against him; it would not let him down. He had been given a second chance and he would not fail this time. So he made up his mind, got up from the ground and shifted into a young boy with messy brown hair, jeans and a dark bomber jacket. When the transformation is complete a teenager walks out from the ally into the busy street of the huge human city.

When he picked up the white abandoned kitten he did not do so out of conscious thinking, to be completely honest he did not even like cats, they were way to snobby and often way to much 'know-it-all-ers' for his taste. He just happened to walk past the brown cardboard box when he heard a quiet mewing and something in the sorrowful and helpless tone made his young innocent heart ache for the small creature. The whimper reminded him of how granny had taken care of him when she found him wandering aimlessly down the street, a half-starved and helpless pup who would probably not have survived the cold and merciless winter that was fast approaching.

No Toboe did not really like cats in general but he did feel sorry for the tiny kitten, she could not have been older than a couple of weeks, so he lifted her up from the box and gave the small creature a piece of the sausage he had at least sort of discretely nicked from a corner store a couple of blocks away. He continued to walk down the street with the cat in his arms, holding her in his right and scratching her belly with his left.

"You were hungry too weren't you little one?" he says, more so to keep both his and the little kittens spirit up than actually trying to strike a conversation, well knowingly she is way too young answer him. It did not hurt to have some company though, even though it was a cat, a baby cat on top of that…

When Hige woke up that morning he did so with an odd feeling, it felt like he had been dreaming for a very long time but he just could not remember what he had dreamt. It was just there, on the tip of his tongue, but as soon as he tried to evoke a memory, an image, a smell, something!

The feeling disappeared again, it kept taunting him that whole morning, as soon as he started to think that he could recollect a piece of the eluding dream he lost it again. Seriously annoying but hey, it was just a dream and his stomach called for attention so he decided get out of the abandoned apartment he currently used as "home" and search for something to satisfy his steadily increasing hunger.

When flying through the streets of the city on his bike he could almost forget where he was, if only for a short moment, if he closed his eyes he could almost forget about the noises, the smells and the humans surrounding him. Driving the bike was the one thing even remotely similar to running free in the wild, running without a worry in the world, listening to the sounds of nature while feeling his strong muscles stretch and contract in the age-old rhythm of the hunt. Yes, Tsume loved driving his bike for that one simple reason: it almost, on very rare occasions made him forget where he was.

He stopped at the red-light, impatiently waiting for it to switch. He did not have a particular place in mind where he was heading, he just felt like going for a drive. Lately he had felt like driving more and more often, there was an itch in his body, a restlessness that had not been there before… wait, before what? That thought occupied his mind so completely that he failed to notice when the light switched to green. He just stood there, completely unaware of his surroundings, he stood so until the asshole in the car behind him jerked him back into awareness with a loud honking of his car horn. When Tsume drove off again that particular thought kept haunting him, it did not add up. He had not been this restless before, but before what? He could not remember ever feeling like this but at the same time he could not remember a time when he had not been taunted by this itch he could not seem to shake off…


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

When Hige walked down the street with a shopping bag in his arms that rainy day he thought the day would play out just as every other day had since he arrived at the Freezing city a month before, he would mess with the crows in the park, listen to some of the new gossip they willingly shared about the gang leader wolf who seemed to become more and more infamous for every passing day and just chill out. What he did not expect was to catch a whiff of an extremely familiar scent. It was just the faintest smudge of a scent but still enough to interest him. Who could it be? It was definitely a wolf but he knew of no wolves in the area, so why did this scent remind him off someone? He quickly decided to track the scent to its origin to try to figure out this new enigma…

Hige followed the scent all the way from the eastern end of the city to the dodgier part of the west, in this area the chances of getting mugged where higher than the chances of finding something to eat. Why would this strange yet so familiar wolf venture into this god forsaken area of the city? At this point Hige had worked himself up quite well, something different where about to happen, he knew it, he could smell it in the air. It was so dense he could almost grab it in his hand. It was no surprise that he almost jumped out of his fur/clothes when a young boy in his late teens or early twenties suddenly appeared from a dark alley, grabbing Hige from behind and growling in Higes ear in a low voice.

"Why are you following me?"

"Uh, what the hell let me go!" When the other boy did as he commanded Hige continued: "Gees you scared the shit out of me, you didn't have to sneak up on me like that."

The other boy simply stood there, eyeing Hige for a few seconds before relaxing a little; obviously deciding he was not a threat. He repeated his earlier question in the same expressionless voice, giving away no clue to what he was really thinking.

"Why are you following me?"

Hige hesitated for a second while contemplating his answer, he could not very well say: I thought you smelled familiar, that would sound ridiculous, he had no idea who this guy was and he had most certainly never met him, he would definitely have remembered that. So instead he shrugged his shoulders and answers causally

"I dunno, just thought, you know, have not met another wolf in a while so when I picked up your scent I thought I should, I don't know, say hi?" While mentally bashing himself: G_ee was that the best you could come up with? You sound like a complete dork. Not the quickest thinker are we? Dumbass…_

The dark-haired boy seem however contempt with his answer and relaxed a bit more, still not saying a word and still eyeing Hige from top to bottom…

"So… um, I'm Hige, nice to meet you…?"

"Do you live here?"

"Uh, no I like to keep moving but have recently been hanging around in the eastern parts of the city, more to eat around that area… Let me guess you're not from around are you?"

"No, I… I'm not from around." Kiba answered hesitantly, he really had no idea where he came from but was not going to let the other wolf in on this most fundamental gap in his memory. Although, he could not shake the feeling that he knew the other wolf from somewhere, could he be one of the members of the pack Kiba had run with before the world went to hell and back? But that would be preposterous, how could you welcome someone as a long-lost brother if you had no idea what they looked like? Or how you came to split up in the first place or even if that person was still alive? Hell Kiba was not supposed to be alive himself, but here he was, back in freezing city and if possible even more confused now than he was ten minutes ago when he noticed a young brown-haired boy in an over-sized yellow sweater and grey sweatpants tracking his, to humans, unnoticeable scent… Still, this guy… he smelled familiar, and something in the way he smiled a bit sheepishly just now ringed a bell…

Kiba was abruptly interrupted in his train of thoughts by the other guy who kept insisting on finding out his name.

"Kiba, I'm Kiba." he answered more so to shut the boy up than to encourage more talking: He was so confused, nothing made any sense and no matter how much he tried to straighten things out he could not make it add up. By now he was sure he knew this Hige, from somewhere but where, and how?

Hige on the other hand was currently busy battling his own feelings of déjà vu. They grew stronger for every second and after a bit, a lot actually… of contemplating he decided that he could no longer ignore his instinct that was practically screaming inside him that he could not let this wolf disappear, they were connected somehow. Hige cringed to himself, it even sounded lame and weird in his fucking head and he really did not feel like explaining himself to the complete stranger in front of him. But then again, if his instincts where right… the white wolf in front of him… they had met before. They had to be. The more he thought about it, the more came back to him, it started with familiar scents, images flashing by, first too fast for him to capture what they meant but soon slowing down to a comprehensive flood of memories.

"I know you." Hige almost whispered out, regretting his words the same moment they slipped out of his lips but too late, his words have a great impact on the other wolf. They young man's closed of expressions quickly changed. For one whole second he looked confused and surprised before once again stepping in behind his emotionless mask.

"Know me? Maybe, I… I believe I know you too Hige, I think we have met before."

After a few awkward moments and beginnings of a couple of conversations that equally quickly ended again when trying to determine how they knew each other and what the other one remembers, Kiba smiled and nodded.

"It is good to see you again Hige, I never thought I would be given a second chance to find my friends."

"I'm not even going to try to understand it... I can remember, the last moments… I remember." Hige stopped himself before he finished the sentence and shuddered in an attempt to shake of the uneasy feeling that suddenly had taken hold of him. One should not have to remember their own death he decided, that is just creepy and wrong on so many levels…

"Anyhow, it is good to see you again too Kiba. Say, if we are here do you think Toboe might be here as well? And o Tsume, I think I know where we can find Tsume. I have listened to the crows' gossip about a wolf that is leading a pack of humans, robbing banks and food deposit trains. It has to be him doesn't it?"

"Sounds like Tsume, I was following a scent down here to this part of the city that might be him, I did not know who it could be, or why the scent felt familiar when I first found it but now it makes sense…"

"Let's go and find mister grumpy." Hige suggested with a big grin and received a smile and a nod from Kiba in return before they both turned around and started walking out from the ally in search for their third pack member.


End file.
